Today was Opening Day for Bouchercon2025 in New Orleans, and my first Bouchercon ever. The commute was easy as I’m staying at the same hotel as the conference.
I am fighting a cold, so I ended up sleeping in the afternoon for three hours, and missed a few panels before going back to the conference. Closed out around 8:30/9:00 and I grabbed some dinner in the lobby, came back to the room, and called it a night. Just in time to write this post and the conference one.
Back at it tomorrow for Day 2. I’ve got better meds for tomorrow, so I’m hoping to be in better shape with more endurance. I’m a lightweight conferencer, apparently.
I woke up still fighting a cold, so decided to take it easy for the day. Other than being a mucus factory, I wrote a blog and posted it — except for some reason, Buffer decided NOT to share it to my networks. Not sure why, but it didn’t share. I know people were reading the blog today, a few had trouble loading the pictures early on, but I assumed it was my longer post, not the “travel logistics” one. Oh well, it’s live and I’ve reshared it to the networks manually. Weird.
I decided I would do the Audobon Aquarium to see the penguins, and if time and body permitted, I would consider airboats or evening cruises or music or late night food cravings. As it turned out, the Aquarium and Insectarium were all I could handle today besides a nap!
I headed towards the Aquarium along Canal Street, a supposed 11 minute straight walk. Well, except I hit a shake shack really fast and they had burgers, so voila, lunch. I have seen mention of snow cones or snow balls, but haven’t seen them physically yet. In the meantime, shakes will do.
I went past Caesar’s casino, a rooftop rotating restaurant, a New Orleans Walk of Fame, and mostly crept along at a snail’s pace in the heat. It was damn hot again today. Our family loves penguins, though, so the only destination that mattered was the Aquarium.
Before I got to the penguins, I got to see a bunch of other marine animals.
American alligators without pigment, baby alligators, even butterflies. Plus birds, fish, sharks, rays, etc.
But the goal was penguins and even saw the feeding (a much more sedate experience than the one in Boston!).
The penguin exhibit was great. You can get right to the glass, the penguins are literally an inch of glass away from you, so you can get up close and see them playing. You can even interact with them — if you put your fingers near the glass, they’ll think you have fish and try to eat your fingers. There were about 23 African penguins and they participate in the broader research program that the Boston Aquarium is part of too. They log every little bit of their penguins’ lives, particularly how much they eat.
Here’s the weird part of the day though. I got talking to one of the staff, relatively new, been with the Aquarium less than a year. Mainly on the outreach side, and according to him, you need to be passionate about animals and articulate, but high school was sufficient for the job. If you work behind the exhibits, you need a college degree. His friend only had high school too, but he was really passionate about insects and bugs, so he got hired on the insectarium side of things (I met him in the butterfly exhibit).
Anyway, I was sitting watching the penguins at one point, and nobody else was there. It was just me and the penguins. It was like NO ONE was at the aquarium. With school back in session, and summer effectively over, attendance was down to about 400 bodies for the day. From an average of 1800-2000 and peak crowds of 3200. It was glorious. Later, down by the large tank, I was sitting in a room staring at fish and sea turtles, and again, for short periods of time as people drifted in and out, I was by myself just chilling.
It was a good day to visit. I did a virtual simulator with tiger shark diving, had my picture taken with the traditional aquarium background, spent too much for snacks at the little cafes, etc. I had my water bottle with me, and I have to say I was disappointed. I had poured REALLY cold water in it earlier, and with the material it is made of, some sort of silicon I guess, I thought it was designed to keep it cold. Not really. It wasn’t warm, but that was about it. And tying it to my bag was a bad idea. I tried drinking from it without removing from the bag and ended up wearing about a 1/3 of what I drank. Oh well.
I trudged back to the hotel, and my feet felt every single step in the heat. My compression socks help in some ways, sure, but they sure make everything that much hotter. Whine, whine, whine.
I got back to the hotel, with a small stop for some extra pop, and crashed for a nap. Talked to Andrea and Jacob to hear all about his first day of Grade 11 (yay penguin!), and then I had to figure out dinner.
I decided I’d settle for dinner downstairs in the lobby area while reading, and then hit the in-hotel pantry which has more snacks than I expected, plus some basic deli stuff. I grabbed some stuff for the morning.
And found out they have cherry snowballs in pint-size containers. Wow, what a find. It took me almost a half of an hour to devour upstairs in my room, chipping away at it with a plastic spoon.
I managed to transfer all my photos to the laptop, or at least copy them, including a ton of short videos. Too much to transfer now to the blog, but I’ll add to future posts eventually when they’re scrubbed, tweaked and uploaded to Flickr properly.
Oh, and just for fun, I got mistaken for Lee Goldberg in the deli area. I don’t look much like Lee, although we both have short hair and round faces. But hey, he’s a successful Hollywood writer, so I’ll take the compliment.
To close out the night, I grabbed a picture out the window at the end of the hall of the waterfront and French Quarter at night. I’ll try to remember to grab one during the day.
Tomorrow #Bouchercon2025 starts. Let the notetaking and learning begin!
I’m in New Orleans this week for #Bouchercon2025, and although it doesn’t start until Wednesday around midday, I flew in early so I could explore New Orleans. Fortunately for me, the side effect of problems checking in with United the day before leading to a change in flights meant that I arrived on Monday 7 hours earlier than I expected.
I was checked in and in my room, unpacked, by 12:15 p.m. After two weeks in August travelling around BC and staying in different hotels almost every night, it was a welcome respite to actually put things in drawers so I don’t have to root around in my suitcase every day for underwear and socks.
With an extra half day available, I decided to explore. I’m staying at the Marriott, which is the Bouchercon hotel of choice and the site of the conference. Looking at a map, I wanted to head down Chartres or Decatur street to get to the French Quarter and eventually Jackson Square.
So, of course, with my relatively decent sense of direction and my map on my phone, I completely walked a block in the wrong direction before realizing it. At least, I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, not pants and polos for the conference days. One about face, and I was heading right. Which left me thinking two things. First, that I had thought it was the other way in the first place and then decided the map was right and I was wrong, forgetting of course that the map likes to reorient itself (as told by me in the settings) to rotate for the direction I’m walking. Second, and far more important, I don’t have Jacob and Andrea to play navigator. Normally, when I’m travelling, one or both are in charge of the map. I drive, they navigate. Thankfully, I learned orienteering at elementary school; unfortunately, I don’t have a compass or lines on my map.
But I digress.
It ain’t the heat, it’s the humidity
The day ranged from 86 to 89 degrees Fahrenheit , a measly 30-31 degrees Celsius for Canucks back home. And 71 percent humidity.
It doesn’t sound bad, I know, but it was like walking into a wall of heat. I’m reminded of Robin Williams as Adrian Cronauer in Good Morning, Vietnam describing the weather.
I got two blocks from the hotel, dying in the heat and realized that my nice cool water bottle was still sitting in front of the TV back in the hotel room where I forgot it. Damn hot, indeed.
Oh, wait, what’s this? A place called The Legendary Milkshake Bar? Well, alrighty then. (I know, I know, that’s Jim Carrey, not Robin Williams…work with me, people, work with me here).
Apparently, the woman in the place ain’t used to being tipped or felt bad as I was looking for a single texture experience, not all the bells and whistles they offered. I bought a simple Gatorade for the road, and she gave me two, just in case. Cause it’s hot, damn hot! Don’t think I won’t go back for a bigger experience though. Ice cream experience, I’m not looking for THAT kind of milkshade, dude!
The two flavours are likely to be the ones not on the menu — simple vanilla and chocolate. Then probably caramel sauce, chocolate sauce, a cherry, and mini-marshmallows. With maybe a chocolate chip cookie on top. Of course, there were preset monster options:
The ones with bananas are tempting, even for a texture-plebe.
It hit the spot, and not only because it was now about 1:00 p.m. local time, 2:00 back home, and I’d been up since 4:00 a.m. but tend not to eat much when travelling. Small overshare … when I am travelling for something like this, my body goes into stress mode. Which affects lots of things, but most tellingly so in the, umm, digestive sense. I get to experience the equivalent of mild IBS, and so I’m often searching for toilets. Four different ones in airports on the way here, even with Imodium, although most were just gas. Enough details, I know. But the POINT is that I hadn’t had much to eat yet today, and I was dehydrated. The milkshake got me back in the groove while I looked for a restaurant.
As I walked through the French Quarter, I had deja vu. Often when I travel, and I’ve been to Asia, Europe, good portions of Canada and the US, and the Caribbean of course, I find that when a city refers to a Latin Quarter, or a French Quarter, or even a Chinatown, they’re referring mostly to the food and inhabitants. The buildings themselves rarely seem like the original.
Not so in New Orleans. Someone turning a corner in old Quebec City, or even Paris itself, could easily be forgiven for not realizing they’ve been transported to Louisiana. Sure, the offerings in the shops are different. Lots of pseudo-voodoo shops for tourists and mask shops for Mardi Gras. Reflexology, massage, and other services are available everywhere. Some are obviously “real”, some are obviously “covers”, and some are somewhere in between. I ain’t a vice cop, nor experienced in the genre, but if **I** can tell it’s more than a foot rub they’re offering while passing by, it’s not exactly “hidden”. Ignore the fact that some only open up around 7:00 p.m. and stay open until 2:00 or 3:00 according to the signs, that might be a clue as to their service offerings. And seemingly mostly Asian staff. I digress.
The streets are not wide, they’re quite narrow with cars parked. Not super narrow like Paris or Rome, but narrowish. And all the buildings look like French tenements. It felt so much like Paris, I felt like I should be walking with my head down, trying to avoid piles of dog crap on the street.
I had my headphones with me, and I often like to listen to music while I walk. No way could I do it here. I wanted the sounds, the sights, the smells. Everything. It was awesome.
My main destination was Jackson Square, named in honour of Andrew Jackson. There is a huge cathedral there, and I figured if I made it to the Square, and had lunch along the way, I could come back along the water and meet my quota for the day.
We have a friend, Vivian, who is a super-experienced and super-motivated traveller. She has a philosophy that is both inspiring and terrifying. When she’s in travel mode, and playing good tourist, she sets a goal of “three fun things by noon”. Then, as I understand the philosophy, she can slack off a bit more in the afternoon as the day is already full of fun and new experiences. Not a philosophy of tick boxes, just a way to push herself to be up early, out the door, and seeing what she travelled to see before the crowds hit or the weather changes or motivation flags.
I figured I got here at noon, so if I did three things by dinner, that should MORE than be worth the good tourist badge for the day. 🙂
About two blocks from Jackson Square, the sounds picked up. I could hear a band playing swing and jazz. I couldn’t see them, there was a construction block or something on the street, but as I neared the streets around the Square, I could finally see them. A small band set up under a portable awning, playing for tips, just off from the cathedral (the blue awning).
I know, I know. It’s not very inviting if you only see the picture. Hang on a second. Open Flickr app, upload video, synch over to my WordPress app…and…nothing. Hmm…Let’s see. If I install PhotoSync on my laptop, then synch without deleting aka just copying, and then try to upload from my laptop to Flickr. I’ll eventually put ALL of the photos in an album for Flickr, but I’m not ready to sort and weed yet. But if I can get the video over here…and then to there? Voila.
IMG_7550
Jackson Square
Nice trumpet work, for the little I know about trumpets. Music. Performing. Anything, really. But it was nice. 🙂
Yet the stomach was rumbling, and my energy was flagging in the heat. I needed sustenance and somewhere to cool down again. I was only about ten blocks past the milkshake bar, or about six voodoo stores and 4 massage places, but it was hot. Did I mention how hot? Damn hot.
Oooh, what is this place? The upper floors don’t feel french to me, but the lower level? An open brasserie? Giddy up.
Cocktails to go? Umm. Okay, wasn’t expecting that as an option. But the cuisine options sounded intriguing enough (okay, everyone offers cajun and creole, I know, I know). The menu had lots of cocktails, which normally don’t interest me. I average about one alcoholic drink every 4-5 years, if you exclude weddings where they serve wine or champagne at the table with dinner, which I try but often don’t finish myself. Don’t get me wrong, I like mixed drinks. Mostly ones with milk or cream, and rum. Or occasionally fruity drinks on a hot day. Like this one. But I’m usually driving and don’t really want it bad enough for the prices involved. I’m fine with simple pop/soda and/or water.
My wife is looking at that photo and thinking, “Who IS this guy?”. That’s how rare it is for me to order a cocktail. But it’s called Voodoo Juice. It was described as “A blend of Malibu Coconut, Banana, Passionfruit and Pineapple Rum with fresh fruit juice.” Quite tasty. Oh, and if you look beyond the drink, past the blurry other patrons, you can see a blurry area where the band was playing and the Cathedral. I drank my drink, read my book on my Kindle, listened to the music (a pretty good version of The Saints Go Marching In is likely de rigueur as their last song). And awaited the food. A po’boy sandwich with deep-fried shrimp seems to be on every list by every website of something to try. So I did.
That picture is a terrible ode to the sandwich I ate. It came diagonally cut and I had already ripped through the first half without thinking much, after devouring fries. For the second half, I followed the official plan, aka “Dressed” in the local language, which traditionally means to add lettuce and mayonnaise to the sandwich that is po’boy bread with deep fried and battered shrimp on it. Oh, and pickles. I mustn’t forget the pickles. I skipped adding the tomato. So maybe only partially dressed. Rar!
Can I digress for a second? I normally like simple combos, few toppings, purer flavours. I would almost never think to add mayo to, well, just about anything by default. My condiment use doesn’t go much beyond ketchup, relish, mustard (although the Great Mustard Incident back in Mexico numerous years ago has me fearful of condiment dispensers), and salt or pepper. Pickles? Sure. On shrimp? With lettuce? When in Rome or the French Quarter, as they say. OMG. The combo raised it from simply good to ravenously awesome. Just a perfect blend of flavours. Surprisingly so.
I finished my drink, had a coke to clear the flue so to speak, and off again. The Cathedral is under construction, and didn’t seem readily available to enter. I was surprised there weren’t more tourists out and about on Labour Day, but I suspect many are doing the “back to school” readiness dance (if not already in school). I took some pictures of the church and square.
I found something odd about the cathedral, and I qouldn’t quite figure it out. Something was nagging at me. It wasn’t until I posted the photo above that it came to me. Almost all of the photos that I saw online were carefully cropped. It showed the magnificant cathedral, from the front (many taken from the Square), and it looks like there’s almost nothing around it. Big, majestic, imposing even. Then I took the photo above and realized there are buildings almost pressing up against it from three sides. Suddenly it seemed less majestic, disappointing almost.
The Square was lovely though. Old gnarled trees, the statue of Andrew Jackson.
A marvelous area to people-watch. Ladies fashion in the area ranges from ho-hum beach+ to prom dress sheen to amazing combos of dresses, footwear, and wrap-around tops with ties. Quite striking and unique, but I don’t get out much. 🙂
As I got to the end of the Square aka my goal, I noticed Cafe du Monde across the street. I had miscalculated distance, as I thought CdM was another few blocks and in the heat, I was going to take a pass. If po’boy shrimp sandwiches are on food lists in most guides to New Orleans, CdM is on EVERY list. To buy beignets. From the descriptions, and pictures, they look like a doughnut without the hole, with some sugar added. Oh, the pictures lie. They lie like cheap rugs.
The beignets are little slices of heaven hidden in fluffy clouds of sugar. First, they are not a doughnut. That is clear with the first bite. It is more like a cross between a fritter for shape and texture, with the taste of a warm soft bun, and a hint of sugar coating. Second, they’re served warm. I thought they would just be cold, pre-made, grab and go. Nope. They’re served warm, so the bun part melts in your mouth. It’s exquisite. Now, I have to confess, the sugar is daunting. They serve 3 beignets for $5 and it came covered in powdered sugar, served at an outdoor — all cash — cafe. I’m not sure the business model, but I suspect all of the waiters are actually self-employed contractors. CdM focuses on making them, the waiters and such serve. Hard to tell, but the business model is probably only of interest to me.
Okay, I confess. I cheated a bit. I picked up the beignet, tapped it on the plate from the end, and knocked most of the sugar off, back onto the plate. Three beignets later, I was STUFFED, and this was still left on the plate.
At the bottom of the pic, you can see some of the powdered sugar got on my shirt, my shorts, the people sitting next to me, two people having lunch in Baton Rouge eighty miles away who thought it was snowing, etc. You get the picture. A delightful mess. The people next to me were a very white couple with two young daughters, one dark and one light in tone. Ah, genetics, I have questions. One might have been a friend of the daughter, hard to say. They ordered them to go, and as I left, I chatted them up. They hadn’t tried them before either, and I had to rave to SOMEONE. The daughters were amused by the old guy covered in powdered sugar, I’m sure. I’m sure it was amusement and not derision. But I digress.
I headed over to the shore next to the great Mississippi River, and checked out options for boat tours, took in the sites, etc. I confess, my energy was starting to lag.
I’m not sure how long the cruise ship had been docked, but it was heading out when I was there. The angle and distance are misleading as it doesn’t look like it will fit under the bridge, but it did without any issues.
I started the route back to the hotel, continuing along Decatur Street (Chartres and Decatur run either side of the hotel — if I continue along them, I can’t get lost!). On my mind as I walked was a desire for sundries. Water, other drinks, snacks. Things to get me through the week, stock up my fridge, etc. I hadn’t seen anything resembling a corner store going along Chartres so when I saw a CVS (basic pharmacy and sundries), I jumped for it.
Apparently, my brain was mush. I got a bag with two bottles of Gatorade (to add to the two the milkshake lady gave me, only one half gone), plus some chocolate. And a bundle of 8 bottles of water for the fridge. Then I started lugging. I thought I was only a few blocks back? Nope, I was still about ten. When we were in BC, I really liked having extra stuff for snacks and drinks every day, but of course we had a car and a cooler. I am sherpa, see me schlep. It was a long walk back along Decatur in the heat.
The street isn’t a good impression of the French Quarter, as the roads aren’t narrow here, but it was a nice wide shot of the buildings.
I got back to the hotel and was feeling a little overdone. I read for an hour, and then napped for two. Only to wake up sick. Andrea had a cold all last week, Jacob got it early weekend, and I had hoped I missed it entirely. Either I didn’t miss it, or I got sick on the way here. Either way, woke up with sore throat and congestion starting. I felt like crap. A bottle of Gatorade later, and I was willing to go out. I strongly considered room service, but my friend’s Vivian likely disapproval inspired me out the door. 🙂
The hotel has what they call a “Burger Bar” in it, which is completely misleading. First, it’s not really “in” the hotel. It’s in the overall building, sure, but it opens up out on Canal Street. Second, it sounds like a restaurant, but it’s about the size of a food truck. Maybe a little bigger. It DOES have electronic ordering like McDonald’s. I passed.
I wandered down the South side of Canal Street for a few blocks, checking out places. Massage parlours were more openly aggressive, lots of drug dealers hanging out on corners although they didn’t seem to be doing an active business, and a number of homeless sleeping in doorways or on the street. Most of the restaurants had their chairs up on the tables, or bars, and were closing up. I saw lots of chicken places, but I was looking for something basic and comfort food like. I wasn’t sure WHAT exactly until I came across an IHOP. Huh. Not what I was looking for, nor what I was expecting, but eggs sunny-side up with toast, hash, fries, and bacon? Sure, sign me up tonight. The food was decent, service below average for IHOP, but about average for a lot of fast food places these days. The woman serving me was very nice, but she was not a candidate for Tulane or Xavier or LSU. Maybe she was just new. The food arrived warm and fresh, except for the fries. I had to ask for them twice more before she remembered there was an extra side.
But I experienced a small miracle in the IHOP. They have a lovely mocktail called a Blue Raspberry Lemonade Splasher. Whatever they have in it, it was like nectar to my sore throat. I had three of them. And when she brought the bill, she treated them all as refills. I am pretty sure they are not “unlimited refills”. I tipped her well instead of arguing, and drank the nectar of the gods.
Afterwards, I crossed the street and headed back. It was about 10:30 at this point, and almost everything on the North Side was closed. Except the Walgreens and CVS, only a block or two from the hotel. Son of a … yep, I lugged stuff way too far. And there’s even a mini mart about a half-block past the hotel, although I haven’t checked it out. I grabbed Ricola for my throat and some Coke to get me going in the morning, and ignored the con artists and homeless people who wanted to engage on the way back. The two cop cars that showed up at the same time and parked in the middle of Canal Street next to the street car areas seemed to clear out the drug dealers. Or at least put a serious crimp in their business.
I returned to the hotel, wrote my blog for the trip to Orleans, and played with uploads here and there. Vivian saw a few posts on Facebook and gave me her seal of approval as a good tourist. 🙂
For me, I took some big things off my Louisiana list. I had a po’boy sandwich. I ordered a local cocktail. I walked around the French Quarter. I visited the Square and saw the outside of the Cathedral. I managed to make it to the shore and to Cafe du Monde. I bought the stuff I wanted for my mini-fridge. All because I got up at the crack of stupid to fly only on Air Canada and thus got here 7 hours earlier. I thought Monday, Labour Day, would be a write-off and Tuesday would be my big day. Apparently not, in a good way.
I still have jazz, the Aquarium, and BBQ shrimp on my must list, although I’d like to do either an airboat or a cruise perhaps too. And wander around the French Quarter again at night. Hopefully with some people from the conference.
I’m not yet ready to embrace the local motto of “Laissez les bons temps rouler” (let the good times roll, which seems like a harsh anglicisme), but if someone asks me “Where y’at?”, I will at least remember they’re asking me how I am doing, not where I’m from.
I’ve always wanted to go to Bouchercon, all the way back into the late ’90s and I was in various writers groups online. It just never seemed worth it enough, as my writing hobby is mostly blogging and will be so until I retire and have more time to devote to it. And even then, there are a bunch of non-ficiton pieces at the top of the writing to do list.
But I’ve trying to think ahead, “prep” my retirement, and this year’s Bouchercon is in New Orleans. The Big Easy. And a destination that has long been on my bucket list. I pulled the trigger back in late Spring and registered, booked flights and reserved the hotel. I was in.
I was trying to keep the arrangements simple, and I booked with Air Canada from Ottawa to Chicago, and then Chicago to New Orleans. On the return, I had the same connection. There were options through Toronto and Washington, but Washington’s times were odd, and for Toronto, I wouldn’t clear customs until Toronto. If I went Ottawa to Chicago, I could clear customs in Ottawa. All good.
Almost immediately, Air Canada threw me to the wolves. Within days of the booking, they changed the time of my outbound flight by a few minutes and my return, plus switched me entirely to United and United Express. There was a small tweak to one of the elements, something with baggage or seat bookings, as I recall so in effect, they changed the price. Other than the days and the routings, everything changed. No big deal. I had a 4 hour layover in Chicago that I wasn’t too happy about, but whatever.
I just got back from another trip with the family to BC. I couldn’t worry about the New Orleans one too much in advance, other than to plan to do it only with a single carry-on rather than checking any luggage.
This past week, I got the Air Canada app set up with Andrea’s help, and my stress started to rise. It is a REALLY long time since I travelled on my own on a plane. So long in fact, I can’t even reliably think of when it was. I think it was before Jacob was born, come to think of it. Wow.
Anyway.
So the app was flagging things all over the place about my flights. Namely that there had been multiple changes to the flight times. Which I knew and didn’t worry about. And the app didn’t like them. They wanted me to log into my Air Canada account and accept the changes. Except there was no place I could find to say, “Yep, all good.” Whatever, I wasn’t complaining about them, I was fine with them.
Except when I went to check in to my flights on Sunday, Air Canada said “Nope, you have to check in on United”. Okay. When I pulled it up on United, it said, “Hey, we can’t pull up your reservation as there are duplicate flights. If you booked with a travel agency, call them; if not, call us.” Except it wasn’t really “call them” so much as try chatting with them.
I tried chatting. It’s an AI-driven virtual assistant at the start, asking me for my confirmation number, my eticket number and my last name. Only to tell me that I should checkin online or use their app. I had to tell it to transfer me to an agent three times before it did. Then 20 minutes online for them to tell me they couldn’t do anything, talk to Air Canada.
Sigh.
Called Air Canada, and actually made it to a real person in about five minutes. Nice. Okay, so they go through, tell me about all the flight changes since I booked, I say yes, they finalize it all, shows up in my app all perfect, no flags. So I should be able to check in with United immediately.
Nope. Same problem. I fought through chat agent algorithms and eventually got to a live body who basically told me that I should contact the travel agency “Air Canada” and get them to reissue the ticket.
In United’s defense, they were showing my return at 10:25 a.m. even though Air Canada was showing 9:40 a.m. So legitimately, it wasn’t lining up.
I called Air Canada and got Nick. Bear in mind that I am now less than 18 hours from boarding and in the midst of packing. Nick couldn’t solve it, and he even reluctantly called United to work it out between them. They couldn’t fix it. But he assured me that if I went to the airport on Monday, they could fix it at the airport manually.
Yeah, I’ve read lots of posts online from people who had VERY SIMILAR problems and lo and behold, it was not easy to fix manually at the airport nor even clear if Go Jet, United, or Air Canada was the one to fix it. AC told me United; United told me AC.
My stress has entered the chat
I was not wanting to go to the airport in the hope they could work it out. It would have just stressed the absolute f*** out of me. So I got to thinking.
Weren’t there OTHER flights that I had not chosen because of routing, times or whatever?
“Hey, look, Nick. I see there is an early morning option to fly AC-only through Toronto to New Orleans. And similarly coming home.”
Yep, he saw it. And since he could treat it as a schedule change, he could rebook me all the way through the trip on AC only. Done. Goodbye United.
Oh f***. I was leaving at 6:00 now, meaning up at 4:00, at the airport for 4:45 a.m. Crap. Well, sleep was overrated. I made it, everything went swimmingly in Ottawa. Interestingly, there was a flight to Toronto that left while I was in the gate area and nobody asked us if we wanted to go early (they did for ours as there was lots of room). I thought about asking, give me more time in Toronto to make a change, but nah, it’ll be fine, right????
I got to Toronto, my new departure was also in Terminal 1, all good, right? RIGHT????
Right, 90 minutes between flights. With walking a mile or two it seemed to get to security, where they decided that we were doing FULL security without any of the bells and whistles that makes it easy at Ottawa now. No, this was old school. Shoes off, laptops out of their bag, CPAP machine out of its bag, separate bin for my carry on, etc. I had 5 bins go through the scanners and then it took me almost 10 minutes to reassemble everything back to where it needed to be. I am NOT looking forward to the return, but I’ve got way more time.
Then I had to clear customs who wanted to know why a government guy was going to a writing conference without a business visa. HOBBY was the key word they were looking for, fyi.
Then 12 more corridors and I really NEEDED a bathroom. No choice at that point.
Got to the gate finally, second last one to board — which was stressful except for the fact the flight was half-empty. So they had boarded REALLY fast. After takeoff, I moved back about 10 rows, nobody in front of me or behind me, easy to recline seats, spread out on the seats beside me, etc. It was great. We also picked up tail wind or something, and we arrived at least 30 minutes earlier than expected.
I texted Andrea as I finished various “stages” and sent some early pics of the Big Easy on landing.
Then a VERY long trip through the New Orleans airport to get to the exit, with another bathroom stop, only to find out that apparently NOLA doesn’t like taxis??? There were about 10 different signs up for various types of transport from the airport, with NO indication at the first 9 where taxis might be. But I found one, $40 and 25 minutes later, with a swing by the Superdome, and I was at the hotel.
Then I got a really nice surprise. I was supposed to get here around 7:00 p.m. at night, but I was now here at noon. I arrived at the hotel a few minutes before but there were a couple of guests ahead. I assumed I’d have to drop my bag and go wander, but no, they had a room of my type available. Sweet. By 12:15 p.m., I was in my room, and unpacked even. Seven hours ahead of schedule.
I have Monday afternoon now, plus all day Tuesday, and some of Wednesday morning before Bouchercon 2025 starts.
This is my home for the next week. Let the fun begin!
This past weekend, the in-laws were in town, and we celebrated my son’s birthday, my niece’s birthday, Mother’s Day x 3, and my MIL’s birthday together. Mostly the last one.
My SIL had been to a restaurant near-ish to our house, and honestly, I’ve never even heard of it. It’s in a small strip mall with a Beer Store, martial arts training, and another restaurant (a burger joint, The Works, part of a franchise). A few other stores here and there. Nothing huge. There used to be a Legion in the plaza, and I didn’t even notice if it was still there.
The Italian restaurant is called Porta a Casa, i.e., Bring it home. I don’t know if it originally started as a take-out place, although that sounds vaguely familiar, that there was a take-out place in that area, that opened around 2022 or so. Nothing I checked out, though, nor ever noticed.
It’s not a huge place, only about 6 tables of 4 or so, call it a seating capacity of 25 or so, and we were 8 of them. They did a good take-out business while we were there, too. I was feeling both hungry and a little adventurous, and since I don’t do Italian very often (I’ll return to this at the end), I went all in.
I started with an order of garlic bread, called Anika Crostini. It’s described as “Garlic bread baked in the oven with tomato sauce, prosciutto & bocconcini cheese, topped with arugula, shaved parmigiano reggiano & olive oil”. OMG. It melted in your mouth. Very high on the oil content, but not greasy, just oily, and it disappeared quick. Not too heavy, just perfect.
I followed up with “Tortellini e Brodo” soup, one of my favourites. It is listed as “Cheese tortellini, spinach, & Parmigiano cheese in a light chicken broth,” and I confess I was a bit disappointed. Don’t get me wrong—it was good, but I’ve had better. They also offer a very popular minestrone, but for some reason, it wasn’t available right then. I would have still ordered the Tortellini, though.
I debated a salad option, and they had four good options, but I chose a simple Caesar. You would think there is little to say about a Caesar salad, right? WRONG. I chatted with the waitress afterwards, trying to nail down what was different. My wife had already speculated it was extra anchovies, which the server confirmed. Plus, they make their own croutons, the salad itself was also super fresh, and the overall dressing? With the extra anchovies and a decent cream, it’s not very heavy…light on coating, heavy on taste. They don’t sell it separately, alas, but she said when she gets it, sometimes she gets extra on the side to take home. It sounds weird to say, but I swear, it is the best Caesar salad I’ve ever had in my life. Like it is worth it to go there JUST for the salad. And I’m not usually a salad guy.
Okay, time for the main event, but before I get to my choice, I want to talk about options for a moment:
Out of fifteen appetizers available, our table ordered five of them, and they were all first-rate. About half are seafood-related;
I mentioned already there are 2 soups usually and 4 salads, and I would easily order either soup and 3/4 salads…in fact, I think I would order one every time, even if I wasn’t super hungry, they’re that good;
There are 8 pizzas on the list, but none of us were wimping out for pizza;
There are 13 regular pastas on the list, and I would willingly try any of 9 of them, with a couple of the 4 being eliminated just as they have extra spice in them;
Add in another 7 stuffed pastas, all of which sounded amazing, and we had 3 orders for the night for other members of our party, all excellent again;
For entrees, there are 11 options, with veal appearing prominently as 5 of them, leaving me probably about 6 overall that I would eat (one veal, and 5 others); and,
Under House Specialties, there are 8 listed on the website’s menu, but I think there were two more on the menu that night.
Why am I mentioning the other options? Because I could eat there another 25-30 times before having to repeat a choice. And I’m WILLING to try.
For my main meal, I went with bacon-wrapped pork medallions. They don’t appear on the website menu, and I don’t know about the take-out menu.
Mind-blowingly good. The medallions were cooked perfectly, melt-in-your-mouth perfect; they fell apart as you ate. They had a really nice dark sauce on them, and I went with fettuccine alfredo as the side. I never made it to the fettuccine (we brought it home). There was so much meat, the whole time was like little explosions of flavour on my tongue. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a meal even close to this much.
There were only two negative parts to the meal, as all of us enjoyed everything we had. First, as I said, the tortellini e brodo was good but not life-changing (a pretty high bar, I know). Second, my son had fettuccine alfredo as his main, with large shrimp, and as amazing as it was for all of us, he actually likes East Side Mario’s fettuccine better. I informed him that I would miss him; I disowned him immediately for such blasphemy.
I mentioned above that we don’t do Italian very often when we go out. Jacob loves Italian, or more accurately, he loves fettuccine. And most pastas in general, I would say. I like it too, but I would normally prefer something Asian if we’re going out. But one of the reasons I avoid Italian is that I find it hard to find a good Italian restaurant outside of Little Italy that has both decent authentic Italian AND parking. Little Italy isn’t horrendous for parking, if you go at the right time (a bit earlier), but it’s a crapshoot sometimes. In the summer? On a warm night? Fugeddaboutit.
This place? Not too far from our house, with a full parking lot. It also has a really strong take-out option, which is a plus; the place is small enough that reservations are almost a must, and to be honest, we rarely decide that far in advance, so take-out might be my main option. I feel almost like I’m willing to go monthly. Now, how do I convince my wife and son that it is worth the time investment and such a heavy spot in our rotation?
